'Miss Representation' film addresses negative media images of women

Dawn Turner Trice

Christine Bork recently spent 90 minutes watching an insightful documentary called "Miss Representation." It's an examination of gender bias over decades, and the hypersexualized and demeaning images that women and girls face in the media today.

You see scantily clad women behaving badly in television reality shows and barely dressed female newscasters showing a lot of leg and boobage delivering the news.

You're reminded of the nastiness and sexist insults that Hillary Rodham Clinton dealt with during the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries. And remember the "'nutcracker" made in her likeness.

You see how the photographs of models are no longer just retouched in advertisements, but sometimes so digitally altered that the result is a distortion (beautiful or not) that is impossible to attain in reality.

Bork has a daughter who's 13 and a son who's 9. She said that as she watched the film, her emotions turned from sadness to anger.

"As a mother and doing what I do for a living, it was a case of the professional and personal colliding," said Bork, chief executive of the YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago. "But I felt it more as a mother and began to think about how what's happening in the world will affect my kids. I was angry and I could feel my skin getting red."

Consider these statistics. According to "Miss Representation":

•53 percent of 13-year-old girls are dissatisfied with their bodies.

By age 17, that number increases to 78 percent.

About two-thirds of women and girls have an eating disorder.

I talked to Bork because on Sept. 8 the YWCA will host a screening of the film and a panel will discuss how yet another generation of young women and girls is being socialized — in advertising, in film, in video games — to believe their worth rests in their youth and beauty and less in their ability to lead. (To learn more about that screening and another to be held on Sept. 22, go to ywcachicago.org.)

Bork said that although she understands the effect the negative portrayals have on her daughter, what struck her most was the impact they have on her son.

"There are challenges that he faces too," she said. "He's not a sports guy, he's a music guy. He's not into macho portrayals of men. I'm concerned for him now too. That was an eye-opener. This idea that men are taught they are supposed to objectify women. I hadn't really thought of it that way."

Bork, 43, said today's boys and girls have so many more positive female role models now compared with when she was growing up in Northlake in the 1970s. The problem is that the onslaught of negative images sometimes makes women's progress seem paltry.

In the documentary, which includes interviews with Jane Fonda, Condoleezza Rice, Katie Couric, Nancy Pelosi and Rachel Maddow, there's a wonderful quote by Marian Wright Edelman, the founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund, who says: "You can't be what you can't see."

"When I was young, we had (the television show) 'Charlie's Angels.' and I remember relating to the smart one (the Sabrina character)," Bork said. "We also had 'Wonder Woman,' but she was saving the world in her underwear."

One reason the negative images feel like a bombardment today is that they're coming from so many different directions. Youth get their information via social media, their cellphones and so many cable stations, where the smut and shock-value quotient seem to be growing by the day.

Bork said it's difficult, but not impossible, for a parent to run interference.

"Even the Disney channels and with Nickelodeon, you have 13-year-old girls being mean and sarcastic or talking about how to get a boyfriend," she said. "Nothing is safe, and it's much more complex as a parent to monitor it and dispel myths."

Jennifer Siebel Newsom, an actress with a Stanford MBA, is the film's writer and director. She told me that there's so much to tackle on behalf of women, from making changes in the educational system and the workforce to making sure women have mentors and positive role models.

"I'm encouraging people to find something that speaks to them and take it on and educate people around them," she said. "The only way we can change our culture is to challenge each other to be our best selves when it comes to empowering women."

How do we do this?

In the film, one of the experts suggests that women use their enormous purchasing power to support businesses that don't demean women. A young man talks about having the courage to speak up in the face of misogynist comments.

Newsom said she wants the film, which will air on Oprah Winfrey's OWN network Oct. 20, to be a catalyst, and she's launched missrepresentation.org to continue to inspire and engage people.

Bork said she would love for her daughter to be a champion for women's rights, as well as fight on behalf of racial equality. But she wants her to participate in a way that she feels comfortable.

"My daughter is smart and she's caring, but she's not a rabble-rouser," Bork said. "I think right now my son has more of that quality to stand up in front of a crowd with his fist in the air, fighting for rights, and that gives me a lot of hope too.

"There are many girls who are outspoken and well-spoken. But not every girl will use her voice that way. And that's OK. There's a role in the front of the movement for boys too."